Find Out Why is Metadata Important, Plus 3 Types You Should Know

The internet has proven to be an expansive, ever-growing, content-factory of information, research, blog posts, opinions, advice and more Memes than we ever thought possible. Metadata is the method that all this information is retrieved. Why is metadata important? Because without it, we would have no clarity, only chaos.

On this page, we’ll answer all your questions about metadata, including:

• What is metadata?
• Why is metadata important?
• What types of metadata are there?
• What metadata is important to search engines?
• Best practices to get the most out of your metadata

Keep reading to learn more! And if you want to stay in the marketing know-how, subscribe to our newsletter Revenue Weekly!

What is metadata?

Metadata is data that provides information about other data. It acts as a label of descriptor that helps to organize and understand the main data it describes. Think of it as information about the information.

The FAIR concept for metadata

Another way to look at what is metadata, is to use the guidelines, known as FAIR to ensure that you are getting their metadata right. FAIR stands for Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable. Let’s look at the FAIR guidelines a little closer:

• Findable: Metadata should make it easier to find information by both humans and bots, crawlers and other machines. It should allow the data to be discoverable by making it easy to identify, in a clear and consistent manner.
• Accessible: All data should be easy to retrieve and access when it is needed, within the given restrictions and permissions.
• Interoperable: The metadata should support the integration of the data with other datasets and systems. Regardless of different systems or sources.
• Reusable: You should be able to use the data in different contexts, by different users.

The purpose of metadata

So, want to know why metadata matters? Here are three reasons why metadata is essential for your business:

1. It helps you classify information

One benefit of metadata is that it helps classify the data you have. Metadata gives your data and information meaning, which helps with categorizing and organizing information.

Classification is critical for helping people and search engines, understand information. It can include valuable information like:

• Keywords
• Title
• Author
• Publication date
• Access permissions
• And more

Having this information helps classify data and provide additional helpful information.

2. It helps with search engine optimization (SEO)

Metadata is critical for helping you rank in search engines. The importance of metadata is that it provides search engines with information about the content on your pages. It helps search engines process information on your page and understand the context.

By using metadata, you help search engines determine the relevancy of your content. It uses that data to determine where to rank your pages and decide if your content is relevant to the search results for the keywords you target. Metadata also helps Google index your pages for the right results.

You want to use metadata to help your content appear in front of the right people so that you can drive qualified traffic for your business.

3. It helps search engines process visual elements

Words aren’t the only thing you have on your website pages. You have images and videos to help engage users and get them to interact with your content. Search engines, however, can’t read these visual elements on their own.

But with metadata they can.

One of the benefits of metadata is that it enables you to provide context to your photos and videos. It can look at the image’s title or the alt text. Both pieces of information provide the search engine with the context of what’s on your page.

As a result, you can use this metadata to help contribute to your page’s context, so your page will appear in more relevant search results.

What types of metadata are there?

Now that you know why metadata matters, it’s time to look at what types of metadata you can use. Metadata doesn’t come in just one type — there are multiple options.

Here are some types of metadata you may see:

• Descriptive metadata: As the name implies, this type of data describes the page or element. Think of descriptors like titles, names, and keywords. These descriptors help provide context.
• Structural data: With structural data, you’re getting information on the makeup of content on a page. For example, if you have a picture on your website, the dimensions of the picture would qualify as structural data.
• Administrative data: Administrative data focuses on delivering information about the results and restrictions of content. If you have limits on pages, this metadata will provide the information on who can access it.

What metadata is essential for search engines?

When it comes to using metadata in marketing, the main place it matters is search engines. Search engines like Google use metadata to help determine the relevancy of your content. Here’s some metadata you’ll want to optimize:

• Title tags: Your title tag is the descriptor that appears at the top of search results. This tag provides your audience and search engines with information about your pages. You’ll want to optimize this tag to deliver helpful information through descriptive text and keywords.

• Meta description: Your meta description provides your audience with a summary of the information on your page. You’ll want to integrate keywords into this description to help search engines identify the context of your page.
• Alt tags: Your alt tags provide search engines with a description of your images. You’ll want to provide clear details and use your target keywords to help provide search engines with the context of your images.
• Keywords: Keywords help your pages rank in relevant search results. You’ll want to optimize your pages for keywords to help search engines understand the context of your pages.

Best practices to get the most out of your metadata

Now that we have covered why is metadata Important, let’s look at best practices. Here we tell you how to make your data, content, images, videos, etc, all easy to find by your users and search engines alike? Follow these best practices!

• Use standardized metadata schema: You can, and should, be as creative and unique as possible with your content. But not with your metadata. In order for the metadata is recognizable, it has to be consistent and use set standards, such as Dublin Core, MARC or schema.org.
• Complete the metadata: Include all relevant metadata fields, including titles, description, creation date and keywords.
• Be descriptive: Use precise and descriptive terms to clearly define your content and give it context. For example, instead of saying ‘document,’ rather say ‘research paper,’ or ‘project.
• Make it accessible for machines: Use formats like XML, or RDF to encode your metadata in a way that can be interpreted by computers.

Need help optimizing your metadata and SEO?

Metadata is a critical component to helping search engines understand your pages’ context. If you don’t know how to optimize your metadata or other facets of your SEO, WebFX can help. We have a team of over 500 experts ready to help you launch your SEO campaign.

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